Cruel and Unusual
by Mulceber
Summary: Sequel to Clinic Blues. House treats a patient who apparently has brain cancer.
1. Introduction

Introduction

"Honey, have you seen Zach around?" the man asked his slimly-built wife.

"No," she responded in a puzzled voice. "Why?"

"I was hoping we could go outside, play some catch," John said, rubbing his brown-haired head and looking around curiously. "I'll keep looking."

"Let me know if you need my help," Suzanne called as he walked away.

John made his way through the large mansion briskly, checking each room in turn as he walked by. Remembering that Zachary often spent long hours in the basement on the XBOX360, he made his was down the carpeted stairs, fully expecting to find his son pounding away at the controller with his fingers. But strangely, the basement was also empty. The investor's mind drifted now to the attic has he considered the myriad of places in the house that Zach could be. It was unlikely that he'd be there, since the attic was filled nothing but old furniture and filing cabinets. There didn't seem to be anywhere else the teenager could be though, so reluctantly, John began the long hike up to the attic.

"Zach!" John called casually, as he began climbing the dusty stairs. "Zach!"

Just as he reached the top step, however, his eyes were drawn to a splotch of crimson, so out-of-place in the gray light of the attic. The blotch, he quickly realized, was a pool of blood in which the unconscious Zach was seizing.

"Honey!" John yelled at the top of his lungs as he flew down the stairs. "Call 911!"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter I

"You're looking well," Wilson said optimistically as House limped through the hospital entrance.

"Well what can I say," Greg replied sarcastically. "Something about the smell of smog and starving hobos never fails to raise my spirits."

"There aren't any hobos out there," the Oncologist objected.

"Hobos crop up wherever there are hookers." Greg said smartly. "And hookers go wherever there are geeky old men who can't get laid."

"You'd know a lot about that sort of thing, wouldn't you?" Wilson shot back dryly

"Not lately."

James stopped and fixed his friend with a serious stare. "Things went somewhere yesterday with Stacy, didn't they?"

"Nope!" Greg emphasized in a strangely aloof manner.

"Well what did happen?"

Looking with interest at Wilson, Greg's mouth slowly curved into a knowing smirk. "Ooh, you just gotta know, don't you?"

"No…" the Oncologist stammered.

"Yes, you do," House said confidently. "Because you're an addict. You struck out with Debbie in accounting, so you're trying to live vicariously through me."

"That's ridiculous," Wilson was more confused than anything else now.

"Sure it is…" House replied in a falsely sympathetic tone. "Addict!"

James rolled his eyes and sighed, while House limped on into the waiting elevator. Finally, the Oncologist shook his head as he remembered what he'd been meaning to tell his friend. "Cuddy wants to see you," he said as he turned to leave.

"Really," Greg said as he stopped the elevator doors from closing and stepped out, heading in the direction of her office. "She must want to hear about my mind-blowing conquest…" he paused as Wilson's jaw dropped. "…of Lupus."

"Not doing it!" House said emphatically as he turned to leave Cuddy's office.

"You've hardly taken a single case since Stacy left…" Lisa began.

"Lupus-boy!" Greg interjected sharply.

"Wilson had to blackmail you. Otherwise you would never even have looked at that boy's file," she said, clearly enjoying the banter. "Doesn't count."

"The kid's a former cancer patient who's experiencing incredibly cancer-like symptoms," House lectured. "That's Wilson's territory, send it to him."

"The parents requested you." Cuddy countered. "And since they happen to be two of the hospital's most generous donors, I didn't think it was wise to turn them down."

"Well you're going to," Greg replied determinedly. "I'm not taking that case." Turning from Cuddy he began making his way to the door.

"I drove by your apartment this morning," Lisa said conversationally. "There was a car outside that looked remarkably like Stacy's…"

House stopped dead in his tracks. "How much do you know?"

The Dean looked almost like a cat that had cornered a particularly agile mouse. "I know that, knowing how stubborn you are, you probably don't want either Wilson or Cameron to know that you and Stacy slept in the same bed last night."

For a moment, the diagnostician appeared pensive, analyzing his choices soberly. Finally, he sighed. "I take this case, you don't tell anyone about that."

"Deal."

Greg nodded, limping for the door.

"Oh and House," Cuddy added.

He paused.

"I'm very happy for the two of you."

"Thanks," he replied softly.

"Differential diagnosis, people," House said as he strode into the common area of his office.

Cameron, Chase and Foreman, all of whom had been quietly engaging in their own activities, jumped at the abrupt noise of his entrance.

"Oops." House feigned an apology. "Didn't mean to interrupt all that hard work you were doing."

"No…it's okay," Cameron said, moving towards the table from where she'd been reclining next to Chase. As she sat down, a strangely befuddled look played on her face. "Differential diagnosis on what?"

"Uh…Zach," House said glancing at the file in his hand before discarding it on the table. "Patient presents with a seizure and coma just a year after his brain was finally pronounced cancer-free. Special prize goes to the genius who guesses what those are symptomatic of."

"It says here he lost two pints of blood…" Foreman read from the file while ignoring House's condescension.

"That would be from the razors he used to cut himself," House interrupted. "Apparently, rich kids can be emo too."

"So he's depressed." Chase interjected.

"No…" House replied sarcastically.

"Depression, seizures and comas are all signs of brain cancer," Foreman said reasonably. "Odds are, he's had a remission."

"Bing bing bing! We have a winner!" House jibed. "Very good. Go MRI his brain, find that little sucker."

"We can't," Chase piped up. "He's got a steel plate in his head from an early-childhood skull fracture. The MRI machine will rip that thing straight off of his head."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter II**

**Couples**

"He wants us to what?" Suzanne asked disbelievingly.

"Have Zach's skull plate removed." Cameron explained placatively.

"We suspect brain cancer." Chase added. "If so then he's going to need an MRI to confirm the diagnosis." He made a gesture towards the comatose teenager. "The MRI machine works like a giant magnet. If we don't remove the steel plate first, the MRI will rip it out from under his scalp."

"Dr. House hasn't even checked in on our son once since he was admitted," the father complained. "What makes him think he knows what's wrong with Zach?"

"Dr. House is taking a special interest…" Cameron helplessly tried to reassure him.

"Then why isn't he visiting our son?" John interrupted belligerently. "We don't donate $100,000 each year to this hospital so that the attending we request can ignore us!"

"He isn't ignoring you." Chase said firmly, irritated at the way Cameron was being spoken to. "You want to know why Dr. House hasn't come to visit Zach? It's because he hates your son. He hates your son, and he hates you and he probably hates everyone in this damn hospital! If you wanted a doctor to hold your hand, you chose the wrong diagnostician. Now do you want your son to get better or not?" Taking the clip board with the release from Cameron, he pushed it into John's hands.

Utterly speechless, the father slowly penned his signature on the page.

"Thank you," Cameron said kindly, trying to make up for Chase's forcefulness. Turning, she gave Chase a nod that clearly said '_follow me', _and the two stepped out into the hall.

"Think you could have been a little more obnoxious there?" she groaned as they walked down the hall.

"I get so damn tired of families whining that they aren't getting enough attention!" Chase vented. "Especially the ones with that annoying sense of entitlement, they're the worst!" He sighed, having completed his tirade and looked at his fiancé as they walked. Robert smiled, as though he'd only just been made aware of what he'd said in the last five minutes. "I'm sorry."

"Treating patients is what makes doctors miserable?" Cameron said with a chuckle as she paraphrased House. Her anger melted away. "You know, when you proposed to me, part of the reason I said 'yes' was because you didn't behave like House." Allison grinned. "And now here you are being rude to people and bashing the human elements of medicine."

"Everybody lies!" Chase dramatically mocked his boss in his best American accent. "Now let me just go fill five or six proscriptions of Vicodin and we can get out of here."

"Don't start up your motorcycle too quickly, we've still got to schedule the removal of Zach's skull plate," she reminded him.

"Then I think we just passed the elevator," Chase said, turning to look back at the open doors to the lift.

Cameron rolled her eyes, amused, and turned, walking to the elevator with Robert.

"So what's going on with your grand scheme to reunite House and Stacy Warner?" her fiance asked conversationally.

"Just what you saw," she sighed. "We set them up, left them, then the next thing we knew he was at the white board diagnosing lupus."

"Sure it didn't progress from there?" Chase asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Doubt it." Allison replied defeatedly. "He would have…" she paused, barely believing how naïve she'd been to think that her boss would volunteer anything about his personal life.

* * *

Stacy sighed contentedly as she drifted in and out of consciousness. It had been a long day. Dealing with her case load had always been challenging, yet invigorating work, but ever since the divorce proceedings had begun, she had started to find herself exhausted at the end of each day.

The proceedings weren't going all that well either. Mark was disabled, afterall, and she had cheated. It also didn't help that now she had to list her place of residence as House's apartment. It was worth it though, for moments like these; snuggling up with Greg in front of the muted TV, his arm resting languidly around her back, her feet curled comfortably beneath her and his shoulder gently cradling her head.

Restlessly, she slowly shifted her head and looked around. Greg was intently watching 'The New Yankee Workshop' next to her, clearly hoping to see Norm Abram dismember himself with the table saw he was using.

"What else have you got Tivo'd?" Stacy asked, yawning.

"General Hospital and Blackadder," he responded, his attention still locked on the TV.

"What is with you and that show?" she inquired curiously. "You never used to watch Black…whatever it is."

"Huh?" House asked absently, mesmerized by Abram's hand moving ever closer to the spinning saw blade.

"Oh, give me that!" she said, both frustration and amusement evident in her voice. Grabbing the remote, she flicked a button and the TV instantly switched off.

"What the hell do you…?"

"You spend too much time watching that thing anyway." She looked into his frustrated eyes in a way that not so much begged as demanded attention.

"If Norm kills himself while I'm away, I'm never going to let you forget it!" House threatened mockingly.

"Oh…come here, you." Stacy grabbed him, her voice full of that same happy frustration. They began kissing playfully as she pulled Greg on top of her.

"Admit it, this is so much better than morons with power tools." Her voice was lusty as she looked up at him.

"I…admit…nothing!" House mocked defiantly between kisses.

Stacy smacked the side of his arm as she smiled.

"Careful, want to…ruin that limb too?" It was difficult to joke with his tongue intermittently probing her mouth.

"You…and your guilt…mongering" she laughed through the kisses.

Their caressing was interrupted suddenly and annoyingly by a knock on the door to Greg's apartment.

"I'll get it," he sighed. Disentangling himself from Stacy, House grabbed his cane from the arm rest and made his way over to the entrance. Opening the door, he was irritated to find Cameron's hopeful, smiling face waiting behind it.

"Dr. House," she said amiably. "I was thinking about how lonely you must be, spending all your evenings alone, and I thought…" she was never able to finish her sentence, as House quickly slammed the door in her face.

"Who was that?" Stacy asked from the sofa.

"Wrong address." House replied assuredly, as he began limping back over to her. Once again though, he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Rolling his eyes, he turned around and hobbled back over to the door.

"Dr. House," Cameron began again as the door opened. "I only came over here to keep you company because I thought you had to be lonely." There was a certain knowing look in her eyes.

House could only stare at her, incredulity and annoyance playing on his face.

"Of course, if you have company, I could come back later," she said, craning her neck in an attempt to see past him into the apartment.

Greg shifted, blocking her view. "I've got Vicodin, and scotch. What other company could a man want?" he asked rhetorically.

"Well I just believe that people need people," she responded with conviction.

"What's going on?" Stacy asked as she stepped forward and stood next to House in the doorway.

"And I think you just proved my beliefs right," Cameron finished triumphantly, an overjoyed smile gripping her lips.


End file.
